The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology

A very well researched book on William Smith, the man who made the first geological map. Riveting reading for those interested in geology.

It was definetly a reading adventure - the story of how one mans obsession with strata and rocks and their relative positioning unravelled a whole new science and gave enough foothold for the likes of Alfred Wagner and Darwin to build their theories upon!Simon Winchesters writing makes it throughly enjoyable - the seed of the idea of drawing and catalagoing the netherworld, his growing obsession with it, the friendships he built, the opportunities he leveraged, the insights he garnered, the cold shoulders, penury, ostracisation and finally, redemption! It sure was a roller coaster of a life and thoroughly enjoyable.I wish there were more maps and images on the subjects he was talking abouit though. The whole narrative is very English and onw would need a walking visualisation to relate what he was talking about.

Bought for my wife who loves everything map related. It did not disappoint.I had the feeling of ‘being there’ with William Smith when his various journeys are described.

En otras partes he leído que se aproxima a una hagiografía de William Smith, y es cierto que en ocasiones lo parece. Sin embargo está muy bien escrito y cumple perfectamente la misión de recuperar la memoria de un pionero de la geología que acometió en solitario un trabajo de increíble magnitud y transcendencia. Lectura muy recomendable

Simon Winchester, trained as a geologist, is a bit fascinated with catastrophes. He has written about the eruption of Krakatoa (Krakatoa) and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 (A Crack In the Edge of the World) along with many other books on diverse subjects (The Professor and the Madman, for instance, which describes one of the more intriguing contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary). But The Map That Changed the World must, for him, have been a special endeavor as William Smith the creator of the map is especially revered by the English and resides, along with Hutton and Lyell in their geological pantheon, which is obviously crowded. The map, the first truly geological map, covers most of the British Isles and looks remarkably similar to current U.S. geological maps, especially in the use of myriad colors to indicate different formations. (The word "geology" was first used in its modern sense in 1735.) Today, the eight foot by six map hangs behind blue curtains in Burlington House on the north side of Piccadilly. The map Smith created "...was conceived, imagined, begun, undertaken, and continued and completed [in 1815] against all odds by just one man." It was drawn when many in Britain still were convinced that James Ussher's assertion that the earth was created at 9 A.M. on October 23, 4004 B.C was true. It is even more remarkable because Smith lived a wretched life. He was a simple, self-taught, country man with a very sick wife who went bankrupt and became homeless shortly after he finished the map. But both the industrial and agrarian revolutions were at hand. Smith's initial interest was sparked by the sea-urchin shaped stone used as a "pound" stone on English scales. He was hired as a surveyor's helper working in the coal mines in Somerset. Every time he went down he looked at what we would now call the stratigraphic column. "The pattern, Smith saw, was always the same, in mine after mine after mine: from top to bottom, Sandstone, Siltstone, Mudstone, Nonmarine Band, Marine Band, coal, Seat Earth, and then again Sandstone, Siltstone, Mudstone, on and on." He wondered whether there might not be a way of predicting what lay where and, indeed, a way of drawing a guide to what lay below. And because, in part, that he wondered about this he was selected to be the surveyor for the Somerset Canal, which, in effect, opened the earth to him. Once opened, he started comparing the facies at different places. He investigated two that were identical for all practical purposes, except that they had been deposited at different elevations, as much as hundreds of feet. The color, chemistry and grain size was identical, but the fossils were different: "Every single one of the specimens of one kind of fossil might be the same throughout one bed, but would be subtly different from those of the same kind of fossil found in another bed." The map followed. Smith saw a soil map in the County Agricultural Report showing"... the geographical extent of each of the various soils and types of vegetation that were known in the countryside around Bath. His first map and the oldest of true geological maps depicted the geology around Bath, published in 1799. He drew and dictated the stratigraphic column that was the basis of the map at a dinner with friends. That drawing is preserved by the Geological Society of London today.However, shortly thereafter, Smith was fired by the canal company for unknown reasons, found himself with too big of a mortgage and eventually ended up in debtor's prison. Winchester describes the English legal system in as great detail as he does the making of Smiths map. The details of the map and the friends who helped Smith with it are captivating and represent a great deal of scholarship and digging. Smith got it done, but his debts were not paid and so he ended up in jail. Upon his release he found employment with a William Fitton who eventually realized that he was the Smith who had prepared the map, which had become very well known although controversial. Eventually, Smith was recognized for the map he had prepared. If Winchester has left out any historical geologist of note in telling the heroic, tragic and then heroic again events of Smith's life, it is not readily apparent. Winchester is a felicitous writer who has told the life of one of the more interesting members of England's scientific community along with the side notes that reinforces the opprobrium that "there will always be an England."